Rolls of photographic film are processed with different orientations depending on the type of camera used. Photographs taken with cameras that store unused film on the left side of the camera are oriented 180 degrees from photographs taken with cameras that store unused film on the right side. As a result, approximately 50% of the rolls processed by a film-processing lab are processed and delivered to the customer “upside-down”. Additionally, camera users often rotate the camera 90 degrees to one side in order to take portrait-style pictures. When the roll of film is processed, each of the portrait-style photographs will come out “sideways”. Where physical prints are processed, “upside-down” or “sideways” photographs are not a significant problem because the customer can simply rotate the print to correct the orientation.
With digital image processing, the customer may never actually receive physical prints. Instead, images are delivered to the customer in electronic format. For example, the customer may receive a Compact Disc—Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) or floppy disk. Alternatively, the digital images can be delivered to the user using the Internet. If the digital images are stored and delivered to the customer “upside-down” or “sideways”, the customer cannot easily correct the orientation. Software must be used to manipulate the image. The foregoing requires manipulation of large amounts of memory, which is often slow with high resolution images. Additionally, where the images are provided on a read-only medium, such as a CD-ROM, the memory cannot be manipulated. Therefore, images stored improperly oriented will always be improperly oriented on the read-only medium.
The foregoing problem is prevented by having a person view the roll of film prior to storage on the delivery medium, and manually rotate the rolls to correct the orientation. Viewing and correcting the orientation significantly increases the time, cost, and resources required to process and deliver digital images.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous if digital images could be stored properly oriented in a quick and cost-effective manner.